When time and disaster threaten to wipe out captured memories, Amber Harwood steps in to protect the sentimentally valuable.
Harwood is an art conservator, director of Georgian Bay Art Conservation in Owen Sound, and the guest speaker for the Blue Mountain Foundation for the Arts final art talk of the season.
She not only holds an arts degree from Ontario College of Art and Design (now OCAD University), but she has an organic chemistry degree from the University of Guelph, and is a graduate of the Queen’s University Master of Art Conservation program – the only one of its kind in Canada.
In art school, Harwood was drawn to materials like ceramics, textiles, and metal.
“I get huge satisfaction out of the slow, tedious kind of work,” said Harwood. “Even as an artist, the work that I did was repetitive and slow. I could repeat the same knot over and over again. It’s in me to work that way, so that obviously suits how you have to work as a conservator.”
While at Queen’s, Harwood majored in works of art on paper, photographic art, and books.
She started her conservation career in research at the Canadian Conservation Institute, and has been in private practice for the last seven years. Since growing her business in Owen Sound, she’s discovered the emotional side of art conservation.
“When you meet someone, they’re a stranger, but then you learn about the object they’ve brought you,” said Harwood. “The connection to objects that people have – the social connection – is super rewarding in what I do. Having something come in that seems like it’s on its last legs … to bring it back … that’s really quite rewarding for me.”
One of the pieces that stands out to her, and one she will feature in her talk in Collingwood next week, is a rubbing a client’s father had done to transfer a brass plate onto paper while visiting a cathedral in England. The black paper rubbing done in a gold, wax-based pigment was seven feet long. Over time, the paper had been rolled up, moved, and exposed to the elements. It ended up tattered and in a general state of disrepair.
The client’s father was in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
“My main goal was to repair it,” said Harwood.
And she did. The framed piece now hangs in the nursing home chapel. Her client’s father remembered doing the rubbing, and he talks about it when he sees it hanging in the chapel.
“Conservation can be so much more than the technical side,” said Harwood. “I’m super passionate about it. I love every part of it.”
Though her work gets very technical. Recently, a client brought in an oil painting on canvas that had been badly damaged in a house fire. Part of the painting is charred, the rest of it has flaked and browned from the heat.
Harwood has removed the charred paint and found what she calls a “ghostly shadow” of information. The painting will have to be transferred to another canvas and all the blistering and bubbling paint removed. She will be recreating a portion of the painting from photos and from the remaining “information” on the canvas.
The painting was done by the client’s aunt, and it’s a picture of her grandparents sitting knee-to-knee peeling apples. The piece holds significant emotional and sentimental value to the client, so Harwood is determined to do all she can to bring back the painting.
“This is huge, and something we haven’t faced yet,” said Harwood. “This is going to be an exorbitant number of hours … I can’t say, ‘yes, I know this is going to be successful,’ but we’re going to try all we can to bring that piece back for the client.”
She will be tapping into a network of conservators and research, and will be documenting her work for future use by others who might face a similar challenge.
Harwood said she will be sharing stories of her projects during her talk, and will bring some of the tools of her trade. She will also bring in a small painting to show the process of cleaning grime from the surface. She welcomes attendees to bring questions, and works for her to look at.
Harwood’s talk takes place on Monday, May 13 t 2 p.m. at the Collingwood Library.
